Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water’ shows his love for movies

Wednesday

Nov 29, 2017 at 4:54 PMNov 29, 2017 at 4:54 PM

Ed Symkus More Content Now

Give Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro 20 minutes to talk about movies, and he’ll give you an hour’s worth of stories. The jovial writer-director, who has a résumé including “Hellboy,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” and “Pacific Rim,” and just added the adult fable “The Shape of Water” to that list, can easily start answering a question about what movies he saw as a kid, then shift the same answer into the technical aspects of his own films, then jump into political commentary. The man likes to talk! So, it was a pleasure when he sat down in Los Angeles last week to chat about “The Shape of Water,” a story encompassing science-fiction, horror, the space race, espionage, social issues, and romance, and he pretty much stayed on topic, though there were a few intriguing tangents.

Q: “The Shape of Water” is a fable, but it has a good amount of nudity, sexuality, and violence along with a sense of wonder. It’s certainly not for kids. What drew you to it?A: The reality is that fairy tales originally were not for kids. They were told by itinerant storytellers that went from one town to another, and earned their keep by telling a story in exchange for a warm fire and a meal and a bed. People started telling these stories as a way to comment on the political climate, on wars, on famine. “Hansel and Gretel” is a horrible story about families that cannot feed their kids and they abandon them in the woods, to die. I feel that fables, parables, and fairy tales are really suited for adult audiences. The main thing is the spirit of the tale. It can be gentle or uplifting or beautiful or moving or terrifying. The fairy tale can do all of these things.

Q: You’ve said that you wrote the lead role of the mute woman Elisa with Sally Hawkins, who plays her, in mind. Did you have other actors for other characters in mind, too?A: I wrote it first for Sally, then for Michael Shannon (the villain), Octavia Spencer (Elisa’s co-worker), and Doug Jones (the film’s “amphibian man”). In “Beauty and the Beast,” Beauty is a perfect, pretty princess who lives on a pedestal. The beast needs to transform into a boring prince for them to get together. In this film, she is not a pretty princess on a pedestal. She is someone who is extraordinarily, cinematically beautiful and luminous. But she’s someone you could find at a bus stop or on the street, and the beast does not transform in order to get her. Transformation here is acceptance and understanding. I wrote the part for Sally because she has an incredible quality; her essence is very pure, not innocent, but pure.

Q: Though there’s plenty of dialogue in the film, there’s also a lot of silence, in that Elisa only uses sign language, and the creature can only make limited various sounds. It’s kind of a theme of silence.A: I made Elisa silent because the one thing love does is make you speechless. Words lie, but looks and touch don’t. I wanted to start the movie showing you that she has a perfectly content life. She doesn’t need to go out on a balcony and sing (he breaks into song), “If I ever meet a prince ...” She’s happy; she’s not longing for love. But he arrives, they’re in a room next to each other, and they start a contact that I think is deeper than if it was with words. I think the two characters have that silence and each other.

Q: Sally Hawkins obviously learned how to sign, and she does it well, with lots of emotion. Did she go through any other preparation?A: When I started working with Sally I gave her a set of Blu-rays with Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin and, most important, Stan Laurel. I told her to study Stan Laurel because he does nothing, and he says everything.

Q: Another major character, of sorts, is the old Orpheum Theater, which Elisa’s apartment is above. Is that a little nod to old movies that you put in just because you could?A: The movie is a celebration of film, a love letter to cinema. When we move through the floor, from her apartment to the cinema below, we’re not looking at great movies (playing there). We’re not seeing “Citizen Kane” or “Singing in the Rain.” They’re showing “The Story of Ruth” and “Mardi Gras.” When I was a boy, we would go to the movies just to see whatever was playing. And you arrived late. You would get there at 4:30, but the movie started at 4. So, you would stay until it started again. Then you’d say, “Oh, THAT’s why she was kissing him!”

“The Shape of Water” opens on Dec. 8.

— Ed Symkus writes about movies for More Content Now. He can be reached at esymkus@rcn.com.

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